Happy Mother’s Day!
THE BEAT GOES ON
All goes well around the Brady household. Most importantly everyone, both two legged and four, is healthy and happy.
There are a few “older” ladies in the circle. Mom is 97 and Maddie and Sophie turned the corner of 14. All are holding their own, thank God.
Mother’s Day is up-coming Sunday May 10th and eleven of us will celebrate with Mom at her assisted living facility where she has a comfy apartment and wonderful 24/7 care, plus her daytime caregiver Mary Lou, and my sisters Liz and Jo who take her on numerous appointments. I bring dinner on Wednesdays so that she has some variety although the food there is not too bad. Sunday the menu will be her favorites—Deviled Eggs, Monkey Bread, Shrimp Cocktail, Chicken Salad Sandwich with bacon and avocado, and a Spanish Frittata.
The holiday’s history dates to 380 BC in ancient Egypt with a festival honoring Isis, Mother of the Gods. Grecians celebrated Rhea; their mother of Deities during spring fairs. And in the 1600’s Christians in England worshiped Mary the mother of Christ which evolved to include all mothers and became Mothering Sunday, a tradition held every second Sunday in May. Early settlers in America did not carry on the holiday in the new world. They were too poor, hungry, and busy to take a day to celebrate. In 1908, after her mother died, Anna Jarvis, an Appalachian homemaker, wanted to celebrate her life and campaigned for a day dedicated to mothers. By the next year many states were holding services, mostly religious, and in 1914 Woodrow Wilson signed it as a nationally observed holiday. The day has become fiercely commercial and is the largest restaurant day of the year and the leading sales day for florists.
I don’t need Mother’s Day as a reminder of how much I admire and respect my mom. She was born Marjorie Edick in 1929, the 7th of 10 children, in Buffalo N.Y. Her father worked the second shift for the U.S. Postal Service, and her mother took care of organizing the havoc that a family of 12 could create. They always ate dinner together and Grandpa would do much of the cooking. They barely fit around the table, and meals were mostly a roast of some sort, veggies, potatoes, “good bread and real butter.” Game was often the “protein” part of the meal, even squirrel stew. Mom remembers that there was always a huge pot of soup made on Saturday morning that would be eaten throughout the week. It was always meat based because chicken was way too expensive and bones were cheap. Mom started school just over the age of 4 because the nuns of Annunciation Parish felt sorry for her mother having so many little ones at home. She transferred to a public school, Lafayette High, at the ripe old age of 14 where she was on the swim, diving and cheerleading teams. She took mostly clerical and business classes and graduated at 16. Over the next few years, she continued working for the law firm that she’d interned at during high school, then was recruited by Western Electric Company and was secretary to a department head in the plant. During that time, she met my dad, married and had 7 of her own children. In 1967 they moved to Detroit, and she continued to be a stay-at-home mom until Josephine, the youngest, was in elementary school at which time she pursued her college education. She always enjoyed a good book and one of the best things my mom instilled in us as young children was the love of reading. I’ll still re-read The Secret Garden, Ten Little Indians, Arabian Nights (Sinbad the Sailor, Aladdin and the Magic Lamp, Ali Baba and the Forty Robbers,) and The Spiral Staircase. Well-worn copies of those and so many more have a special shelve on my bookcase. We were always, and still are, involved in sports be it swimming, gymnastics, figure skating, tennis, handball, golf, or for me, horseback riding. Thanks, Mom, for your guidance and support! You are much loved!
HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY
AND WISHING YOU ALL MANY MILLION DOLLAR DAYS!
XXOO,
MARY, MADDIE, SOPHIA and GALANT